Clad in an orange top and orange shorts, Stokes took to the Pratt Pavilion court for his first practice with the men's basketball team after receiving approval from the SEC office to play in games.

Stokes, who graduated in December from Memphis' Southwind High School, dwarfed his teammates.

If the 6-8 Stokes wasn't taller than the guys next to him, his 270-pound frame certainly was thicker.

But before anyone could get too carried away with the state's top-rated prospect, Vols coach Cuonzo Martin threw up a roadblock.

"I don't think he'll play this week,'' Martin told the Knoxville News Sentinel. "It's a matter of when we feel he's ready, physically, to play. He's so far removed from playing 5-on-5 with contact, cutting, running and jumping.''

The Vols (8-7, 1-0 SEC) play at No.20 Mississippi State (13-3, 0-1) on Thursday (ESPN2, 8 p.m. CST) before returning to Knoxville to play host to No. 2 Kentucky (15-1, 1-0) at 11 a.m. Saturday (ESPN).

Stokes moved well in Monday's drill work, cutting sharply and dunking effortlessly.

Martin said he wouldn't take it easy on the midterm enrollee despite his layoff, promising to "push him to his threshold.''

Martin said Stokes shouldn't have any problem picking up the playbook.

"We brought him in with a couple guys to go over some of the terminology and things we do offensively and defensively,'' Martin said. "It's really one day at a time. We'll try to simplify a lot of things. The most important things is for him to demand the basketball and also play as hard as he can play.''

Martin said the Vols' motion offense should ease the transition.

"We probably only ran about four plays against Florida; with our motion offense, our ball-screen offense, we try to stay away from running a lot of set plays,'' Martin said. "We'll put him in situations where he doesn't have to remember a lot of plays early.''

Monday's games

Cincinnati 68, (11) Georgetown 64 at Washington: Sean Kilpatrick scored a career-high 27 points as the Bearcats (13-4, 3-1 Big East) went 6 for 6 from the free-throw line in the final 70 seconds to upset the Hoyas (13-3, 3-2).

Kilpatrick and Dion Dixon each had four of Cincinnati's 13 steals as the Bearcats forced Georgetown into 17 turnovers, matching the Hoyas' season-high.

Barbee signs: Auburn basketball coach Tony Barbee has a signed contract, more than 21 months after his hiring. The school announced the deal, worth $1.5 million annually through June 30, 2017, on Monday.

Polls

Baylor women still No. 1: Baylor remains the unanimous No. 1 in The Associated Press women's college basketball poll, while South Carolina has entered the Top 25 for the first time in nine years, at No. 24.

Notre Dame moved up to second after topping then-No. 2 Connecticut. The Huskies were third, followed by Stanford and Maryland. Tennessee is sixth.

Orange tops again: Syracuse is on top of the AP men's college basketball poll for the fifth straight week. The Orange received 60 first-place votes from the 65-member national media panel. Kentucky, which got the other No. 1 votes, North Carolina and Baylor remained second through fourth.